Chuck Close Portraits Quotations

I don't do commissioned portraits and I don't paint college presidents. I can't imagine what kind of ego it would take to want to have a 9-foot-high picture of yourself.

Neurologically, I'm a quadriplegic, so virtually everything about my work has been driven by my learning disabilities, which are quite severe, and my lack of facial recognition, which I'm sure is what drove me to paint portraits in the first place.

I wanted to translate from one flat surface to another. In fact, my learning disabilities controlled a lot of things. I don't recognize faces, so I'm sure it's what drove me to portraits in the first place.